- Every August in which the Republican presidential nomination
is undecided, Ames, Iowa--a city of 50,000 or so residents about 30 miles
north of Des Moines plays host to the Ames Straw Poll, which gauges support
for the various Republican candidates.
-
- The straw poll dates back to 1979 and is frequently seen
as a first test of organizational strength in Iowa by the national media
and party insiders. As such, it can be very beneficial for a candidate
to win the straw poll and thus enhance his aura of inevitability or show
off a superior field operation.
-
- Picture This -
-
- From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. next Saturday (August 11, 2007),
more than 25,000 Iowa residents will arrive at Iowa State University in
Ames. They will be at least 18 years old. They will be there to choose
one man from a list of eleven men as their choice to be the next President
of the United States of America. Each person casting a vote must pay $35.
-
- At one of 60 vote stations they will receive a paper
ballot. They will pencil in an oval next to the candidate of their choice.
They will enter the paper ballot into a machine that will scan the entire
ballot and record the vote. After voting, each voter will place a thumb
into a container of purple ink.
-
- After scanning each ballot, the machine will deposit
the ballot into a "black box" within the Diebold machine. At
6 p.m. each machine and black box are transported to a centralized "tabulation"
room. The door to the room will be closed to the public.
-
- The ballots are not removed from their black boxes or
counted. Instead, a button on the machine is pressed. In response, the
machine ejects a slip of paper showing the number of votes recorded by
that machine for each candidate. The results are tabulated. Someone then
leaves the room and announces the results of the vote to the assembled
media representatives.
-
- Now Picture This -
-
- On Tuesday, August 7, 2007, a letter was delivered to
the Iowa Republican Party and the State and County Boards of Elections.
The letter is signed by various good-government and election reform organizations
and holders of $35 tickets that entitle them to vote in the Ames Straw
Poll. The letter says that unless the following 10-point program is agreed
to, a court order will be sought to enjoin and prohibit the Ames Straw
Poll until the reforms are agreed to:*
-
- 1. From the time the voter votes to the time the results
of the vote are publicly announced, all paper ballots are never out of
the view of the public.
-
- 2. Instead of being deposited into a black box, each
completed paper ballot is deposited into a numbered, clear-plastic container
that is in clear public view all day. The number on the container matches
a number on the machine. The numbers are 4 inches high, black on white.
-
- 3. Each candidate on the ballot has the right to have
an observer present for an inspection by the county of each container.
The single inspection is scheduled to take place 9:55 a.m. at each of the
60 vote stations.
-
- 4. Surrounding each vote station at a distance of 30
feet from the numbered, clear-plastic container is a rope beyond which
any person can quietly stand to quietly observe the clear-plastic containers
and the number of voters.
-
- 5. As the voting period ends, each ballot box is set
on one of two 72-inch cafeteria-style tables that have been set up at each
of the 60 voting stations. There the ballots are separated and hand counted.
-
- 6. Besides two members of the staff of the county or
State Board of Elections, each candidate has a right to have a representative
participate in the counting process. All county and candidate counters
must agree on the candidate allocation of each vote. Once all counters
are in agreement on the allocation of all votes, the result of the count
is read aloud to the public.
-
- 7. The paper ballots are then returned to the numbered,
clear-plastic containers, which are then transported to a central location--never
out of view of the county and candidate observers or the general public.
-
- 8. At the central location, the containers are placed
inside a roped-off area. Within the roped-off area, chairs have been set
up for the county and candidate counters.
-
- 9. As each numbered container arrives at the central
location, the results of the hand-counted vote is read aloud by one of
the county observers and entered into a computer for projection onto a
screen in the room and for posting on the county and state Web sites.
-
- 10. After the results of the vote from each of the 60
vote stations is read aloud, the cumulative totals from the hand counts
are agreed to by the county and candidate counters, read aloud, and entered
into the computer for projection onto the screen in the room and for posting
on the county and state Web sites. This process is continued until the
results of the vote at all 60 vote stations have been read aloud and added
to the prior total.
-
- Why Go To Such Great Lengths?
-
- Vote fraud is a problem, even in America, where elections
have been stolen from non-party favorites by political parties. One such
event occurred in Iowa in 1995. See "A House Without Doors, Vote Fraud
in America," by James J. Condit, Jr., published in the November 1996
edition of Chronicles Magazine.
-
- "Political parties," according to Thomas Jefferson,
"are by their nature, corruptive."
-
- The Iowa Republican Party will use 60 Diebold computers
to record and count the votes.
-
- NOTE: A study by computer scientists at the University
of California, paid for by the Secretary of State of California (publicized
July 28, 2007, in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times) showed
that the Diebold computers were easily hacked, easily rigged, and totally
unreliable for conducting elections.
-
- The UC study confirmed the results of several other authoritative
studies from MIT, Cal Tech, Princeton University, and numerous other sources.
A search of "Diebold Princeton University" on YouTube will yield
a http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Diebold+Princeton+University
- nine-minute demonstration. Adding "Fox News"
to the search will yield another http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Diebold+Princeton+University+Fox+News
- three-minute demonstration by the Princeton scientists.
-
- Los Angeles Times, 7/28/07
- "Scientists prove Diebold computers easily rigged
and totally unreliable in elections . . ."
-
- New York Times, 7/28/07
- "Computer scientists from California universities
have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and
elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could
potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by the
state."
-
- United Press International, 7/28/07
- ". . . computer experts . . . found several ways
to change the vote totals by breaking the codes to Diebold Election Systems
. . . the New York Times reported Saturday."
-
- HBO Documentary, 10/06
- "'Hacking Democracy' shows actual hacking of Diebold
computers in Leon County, Florida"
-
- The Diebold computers being used to "count"
the votes at the Iowa Straw Poll could be used to steal the election from
Ron Paul or one of the other party insurgents by, say, "stuffing the
ballot box" with "votes" for party favorites by thousands
of phantom voters, or by transposing some set percentage of votes from
one or more of the insurgents to one or more of the party favorites, thereby
showing the insurgent(s) such as Ron Paul with far fewer votes than he
actually received. [http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2007-08-05.htm
- Full story]
-
-
- * Update 08/07/07: The final draft of the letter does
not mention the court injunction, but an injunction is being prepared and
numerous classes of plaintiffs are being sought.
-
- http://yannone.blogspot.com/2007/08/ames-straw-poll-two-versions.html
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